Help message Broadcasting system

[Kay C Lan]

Jacque,

I'm treading very carefully here because I'm a mere peasant in the
shadow of a Master, but is it really the case that you can move the
mouse fast, but stop it in an object and not have the mouseEnter
message sent? Whilst I accept that it 'may'* be possible to move the
mouse completely across an object so fast that the mouseEnter message
isn't sent, in the case of toolTips, or contextual Help, this isn't a
concern, in fact it's a good thing that you don't get a dozen scripts
activated and Help messages popping up when really all you want is the
Help for the object under the final resting place of the mouse.

*As a quick test I created a new stack with a large field in the
middle and entered the following scripts:

on mouseEnter
   put "MouseEnter" into Msg
end mouseEnter

on mouseMove
   put cr & "MouseMove" after Msg
end mouseMove

on mouseLeave
   put cr & "MouseLeave" after msg
end mouseLeave

Whilst running the mouse as quickly as possible across the field I
could easily end up with no text in the Msg box, indicating no
messages were sent at all, not even mouseMove. Slowing down a bit I
always got all 3 messages. Every time I came to a halt in the field I
always had the MouseEnter text.

I've extensively used mouseEnter for pop-up text activation and have
never noticed it didn't work. Isn't this what the Engine uses for
ToolTips?

Obviously this isn't extensive testing, but if people are experiencing
mouseEnter messages not being sent, isn't this an Engine problem that
should be sent the QCC?

I appreciate the problem with overlapping objects, but this is covered
in the Dictionary.

I await thy wisdom :-)

On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 7:22 AM, J. Landman Gay
<jacque at hyperactivesw.com> wrote:
> Kay C Lan wrote:
>
>> Lastly, I'd probably use mouseEnter rather than mouseMove. Over a
>> large field, mouseMove could be sent multiple times, causing your
>> script to be triggered unnecessarily. MouseEnter will only be sent
>> once.
>
> I thought about that, and in fact the field doesn't even have to be very
> large for it to trigger multiple times, but that's an advantage. Sometimes
> mouseEnter doesn't trigger. MouseMove almost always does. If the user is
> moving very fast or there is an overlapping control, you don't always get a
> mouseEnter, and you only have one shot at it. Then you also have to catch
> mouseLeave too, in order to empty the help field text. So I think I'd still
> use mousemove here.
>
> I used mousemove in my Klondike game, where each iteration executed a very
> long handler, and there was no noticeable slowdown. That was about 10 years
> ago now, when machines were slower. So now I don't worry about it any more.
>
> --
> Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
> HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com
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